Something interesting. Not sure how everyone will take this but it's not meant to be a slam against this lady or her skills (see links below)...but when I saw this photo, I was a little surprised and thought to myself - Gee...I should be able to get lots of images approved/accepted at Photoshelter. Now keep in mind, I think their diversity of photos and subjects is a GOOD thing and I look forward to having a little more creative freedom at Photoshelter, but I really was surprised to see (in particular) this pizza photo accepted. Just seems to be a lot wrong with it, but that's just me.
I found this link when google searching for "photoshelter". The link she gave is bad, but it does get you to her food gallery. I put the direct link to the food gallery below.
I really don't know what to think. I will certainly try to get my foot in the door at Photoshelter because I like their philosophy and they do have a lot of awesome content on there already....but again, I was really scratching my head at some of the photos I've seen there. Mainly the headscrathers were photos with an overall good subject and interesting composition, but the technical aspects seem to be a little on the low side. Something I myself would be afraid to submit, thinking "there's no chance this will ever get approved!" Anyway, just an observation and I'm waiting on my application results from Photoshelter now. Hope to hear something back in the next few days.
It took a while at first. Photoshelter is the "new kid on the block." I've only had two sales but they were both good sales. I wouldn't say my numbers are cranking (at least not yet.) As I said before you have to have patience. I like Photoshelter's style and their submission requirements are easy to deal with. There is no up-resing, etc., like on Alamy. They accept from pro and no pros, something most stock agencies (not micro) do not. They also let you know what ad agencies are looking.
I don't think they turn down submissions for way too many reasons.
Cate you have been with photoshelter for 5 months, could you elaborate on "I do well."
I have been with iStock for @ 10 months I'm just over $1000 most DL's coming on less than 20 images (I have plenty that don't sell)
At 5 months I was closing my accounts at other sites to go exclusive with iStock, I'm guessing I was around $400 with most DL's coming on less than 10 images.
Just curious if hard numbers would help, you have great work (Cate) and if your numbers are cranking honestly I'd like to know. If you don't want to divulge that's fine too, but resist embellishing. Not that you would I'm just genuinely interested, so please don't be offended.
With Getty dealing with Flickr and some insulting remarks flying from the getty higher-ups towards one of their revenue machines (iStock). The industry is continually evolving and we (the cassual/semi-pro or whatever we title ourselves) need to be, and remain aware. It is our product that is generating the revenue, and no matter what any of them tout in their blogs, it's their wallet that they are concerned about.
I assume that if you sign on to Photoshelter and pick the Rights Managed option, you had better not have the very same photos elsewhere offered as Royalty-Free, like on iStock for RF....Correct?
well I'd say it's more than the pizza photo to worry about,
There are three images there that would not make the cut at any agency concerned about QC. This would concern me as a contributor, because the first thing I would think as a potential purchaser if that image showed up is that I don't want to have to wade through this to get to a potentially useable image that the photog has decided is worth $? when I can go to iStock who's already eliminated these images through there top notch QC standards.
When I first started contributing to iStock I was bummed with the rejections, now I'm thankful.
Honestly with that kind of content how can you expect high paying clients to stick around, try to filter through the less desirable to get to your quality image, just to pay more? Think about it.
No questions are dumb. Since I started in the photography business I think I ask a life's worth of questions on these forums. It's the only way to learn. . RE: RM vs RF Yes. That is correct. You do not want to lose your credibility with your customers no matter what site you are selling from.
I assume that if you sign on to Photoshelter and pick the Rights Managed option, you had better not have the very same photos elsewhere offered as Royalty-Free, like on iStock for RF....Correct?
This has been a matter that has come up on the Photoshelter forums at least once a week. . I look at some of the photos and think wow that's great and others I think "what the heck?" The Photoshelter editors have their own very unique ideas of what sells and I just go with the flow. After all they are professionals. At first I had many rejections, but after learning that this is part of the process and it has nothing to do with my style or my aritistic sense I do not get upset anymore. My opinion is that the editors reject basically for three reasons 1) they already have many photos like this 2) quality issue (they ususally will let you know) 3) it is just not stock. I am always amazed at what is accepted and rejected. But, that is the nature of the stock photography game.
Something interesting. Not sure how everyone will take this but it's not meant to be a slam against this lady or her skills (see links below)...but when I saw this photo, I was a little surprised and thought to myself - Gee...I should be able to get lots of images approved/accepted at Photoshelter. Now keep in mind, I think their diversity of photos and subjects is a GOOD thing and I look forward to having a little more creative freedom at Photoshelter, but I really was surprised to see (in particular) this pizza photo accepted. Just seems to be a lot wrong with it, but that's just me.
I found this link when google searching for "photoshelter". The link she gave is bad, but it does get you to her food gallery. I put the direct link to the food gallery below.
I really don't know what to think. I will certainly try to get my foot in the door at Photoshelter because I like their philosophy and they do have a lot of awesome content on there already....but again, I was really scratching my head at some of the photos I've seen there. Mainly the headscrathers were photos with an overall good subject and interesting composition, but the technical aspects seem to be a little on the low side. Something I myself would be afraid to submit, thinking "there's no chance this will ever get approved!" Anyway, just an observation and I'm waiting on my application results from Photoshelter now. Hope to hear something back in the next few days.
Clean interface, much better than Photographer's Direct (the latter reminds me of my own 10-odd year old attmpts to play with HTML 1.0).
When I first submitted required 10 initial images (all from my "Best of.." series) I got 3 rejected, 6 soft rejected and 1 accepted. There was no explanation on rejections (except for the static text on top of the page that was essentially saying "rejection is part of the game, deal with it"), however there were explanations for soft rejections, mostly about the way I originally captioned them. I redid the captions and in two weeks or so (yeah, they do take time) got them all approved.
After that I added 40 or 50 more from the same series. One was rejected, few were soft rejected (and later approved).
Now they are all live, yet thus far I didn't get even 10 hits total, depsite extensive (IMHO) keywording (very cool keyword verification tool, btw)
Photographers Direct didn't reject any of the images at all. I assume they didn't reject any from others either. They didn't request or verify keywords, either. As I mentioned earlier the UI is very poor and limited, so I have no idea how my images perform. Once or twice a week I receive (filtered) request emails which I have as much chances/desire to fulfill as I have chances to go to the next Mars mission... Here's the most recent one: Any photo with Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna all in the frame, in or out of their racing cars. $300.
Yeah, sure, I'll get right on it. :cry
Thus far I spent about 2-3 solid days of work uploading and updating my content. Outcome - zero, naturally. I guess 3 months means nothing in this game, so I'm simply waiting. Luckily I didn't subsribe for paid versions...
I find that my photos are getting reviewed in exactly eleven days from when I submitted them. The review times used be a lot less but since the volume of photographers has increased so has the review times. Photoshelter needs to hire more editors in the very near future.
Have you submitted anything to Digital Railroad? I was reading their requirements for selling and found it very technical. All I want to do is upload, caption and keyword and submit and sell. Take a look at their site drr.net and let me know if I'm just too technically challenged.:D
Clean interface, much better than Photographer's Direct (the latter reminds me of my own 10-odd year old attmpts to play with HTML 1.0).
When I first submitted required 10 initial images (all from my "Best of.." series) I got 3 rejected, 6 soft rejected and 1 accepted. There was no explanation on rejections (except for the static text on top of the page that was essentially saying "rejection is part of the game, deal with it"), however there were explanations for soft rejections, mostly about the way I originally captioned them. I redid the captions and in two weeks or so (yeah, they do take time) got them all approved.
After that I added 40 or 50 more from the same series. One was rejected, few were soft rejected (and later approved).
Now they are all live, yet thus far I didn't get even 10 hits total, depsite extensive (IMHO) keywording (very cool keyword verification tool, btw)
Photographers Direct didn't reject any of the images at all. I assume they didn't reject any from others either. They didn't request or verify keywords, either. As I mentioned earlier the UI is very poor and limited, so I have no idea how my images perform. Once or twice a week I receive (filtered) request emails which I have as much chances/desire to fulfill as I have chances to go to the next Mars mission... Here's the most recent one: Any photo with Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna all in the frame, in or out of their racing cars. $300.
Yeah, sure, I'll get right on it. :cry
Thus far I spent about 2-3 solid days of work uploading and updating my content. Outcome - zero, naturally. I guess 3 months means nothing in this game, so I'm simply waiting. Luckily I didn't subsribe for paid versions...
Don't know anything about digital railroad other than it looks like they charge a monthly fee to contribute. Or am I misunderstanding something I saw on their site? To me it looked like a minimum charge of $45 per month. I could be wrong though.
Don't know anything about digital railroad other than it looks like they charge a monthly fee to contribute. Or am I misunderstanding something I saw on their site? To me it looked like a minimum charge of $45 per month. I could be wrong though.
The small fee wouldn't be an issue for someone that consistently makes sales...and lots of them. But for a small-time operation like myself, I'll stick with the free sites until or unless I can improve my portfolio enough to have consistently sales.
The small fee wouldn't be an issue for someone that consistently makes sales...and lots of them. But for a small-time operation like myself, I'll stick with the free sites until or unless I can improve my portfolio enough to have consistently sales.
I agree too. If I were getting 100% of the sales I might pay a monthly fee. That is what Photoshelter Archive does. If you want to archive your photos and use the site to promote and sell from your portfolio you get 100% of the sales because basically your are marketing for yourself. The fee is based on bandwidth and starts as low a $9.00 a month. But right now I like the Photoshelter Collection where they do all of the marketing and handle the sales negotiations for me and I get 70% of my sales and no monthly fee. I use Smugmug to archive and "strut my stuff."
The small fee wouldn't be an issue for someone that consistently makes sales...and lots of them. But for a small-time operation like myself, I'll stick with the free sites until or unless I can improve my portfolio enough to have consistently sales.
I want to thank you for all the great info in this thread and for turning me on to PhotoShelter.
I have been looking into joining, but I must admit, I'm somewhat stumped by the Contributor's Agreement. PS seems to state clearly that they will not assign contributed works to any third parties, then they appear to use several "notwithstanding" clauses to reserve the right to do anything they want with our material without notice?
I would very much like to make sure that a service provider does not 'sell' my library and terms of agreement to another party that I'd rather not do business with. That could be disastrous! So the way I see it, if the service provider wants to sell out or merge with another party, we get informed and have the right to pull out before the deal is done.
Makes simple sense to me.
The agreement also seems to say that if the client hasn't paid within 45 days we loose our share. I'm not exactly sure that's what PS means to say, but it is an agreement, so I'd rather not agree to it unless such things are clear.
On top of that, no where can I find a simple statement from PS that they will take reasonable care to protect contributed works from theft and unauthorized use -- something I'd very much expect from a partner that's asking 30 percent of the take.
I have asked PS to clarify. I'll report anything I learn here.
Woohoo!....made it on my first try I got this in my mail a few minutes ago....
"Dear Jon,
Congratulations! Our editors have reviewed your application and are thrilled to welcome you as a contributing member to the PhotoShelter Collection.
Your acceptance means that some or all of your images have been accepted into the Collection and are awaiting your further action to make them available for sale.
Please log into your PhotoShelter account to keyword and price your images and make them live to the site, as well as upload and submit additional images for review. You can log into your account here...."
I submitted 9 photos - 8 approved and 1 soft rejection for a photo I forgot to add the caption to. So I guess that one will be fine when I fix the caption.
Woohoo!....made it on my first try I got this in my mail a few minutes ago....
"Dear Jon,
Congratulations! ... I submitted 9 photos - 8 approved and 1 soft rejection for a photo I forgot to add the caption to. So I guess that one will be fine when I fix the caption.
Wow, way to go!I'll be interested to hear how things go for you. Do we all get to share your second million$$?
RE: Photoshelter
Thus far I spent about 2-3 solid days of work uploading and updating my content. Outcome - zero, naturally. I guess 3 months means nothing in this game, so I'm simply waiting. Luckily I didn't subsribe for paid versions...
HTH
I'm waiting it out for SM to get in on the act - for the reasons mentioned above, it's lot of effort and hassle - you actually have to be pretty dedicated, and I don't want to start somewhere I don't know and then just get demoralised - I'd rather be somewhere I DO know and get demoralised
seriously though - I find the question about not really understanding why what gets accepted and what gets rejected a bit hard to take - I guess Im just too sensitive - not about rejection but about getting confused and frustrated
I have been looking into joining, but I must admit, I'm somewhat stumped by the Contributor's Agreement. PS seems to state clearly that they will not assign contributed works to any third parties, then they appear to use several "notwithstanding" clauses to reserve the right to do anything they want with our material without notice?
another reason why Im waiting for SM because I trust them _ I also found the PS CA something that basically I understood as ' and here's something to confound you just in case we wnat to get away with something you don't like' - now obviously they didnt actually say that but as soon as I have trouble understanding something then thats waht I assume theyre saying because IMO they could, if they wanted, make it real ( real) simple
That's funny,
I didn't read that, but I do believe that I read somewhere that their intent was to put a hurting on iStock and Getty.
I don't contribute to Photoshelter, I'm exclusively with iStock.
PSC doesn't require exclusivity, but you cannot have an image with them and another agency that charges less than $50 (the minimum sales price you can set at PSC). So Nikolai is right, you can't have the same image with PSC and any of the microstock agencies (such as iStock), Alamy Novel Use, etc.
Your right. This thread went from A Smugmug stock thread to a Photoshelter thread. So back to the original, I would love to license my images through Smugmug. Is this a possiblility?????
Woohoo!....made it on my first try I got this in my mail a few minutes ago....
"Dear Jon,
Congratulations! Our editors have reviewed your application and are thrilled to welcome you as a contributing member to the PhotoShelter Collection.
Your acceptance means that some or all of your images have been accepted into the Collection and are awaiting your further action to make them available for sale.
Please log into your PhotoShelter account to keyword and price your images and make them live to the site, as well as upload and submit additional images for review. You can log into your account here...."
I submitted 9 photos - 8 approved and 1 soft rejection for a photo I forgot to add the caption to. So I guess that one will be fine when I fix the caption.
Thanks Cate. And thanks for mentioning that site on here. That's what I was looking for. Hope it works out for me better than the other ones I'm on.
As far as my acceptance rate, I look forward to plenty of rejections in the future I guess it all depends on what they're looking for really (assuming the photos meet the technical requirements, then it just comes down to content).
You can sell digital downloads with a license here in Smugmug already. They just don't have a real stock photo site up at the moment. You just sell the downloads from your own smugmug site. I think you set the prices in the pricing tool just like you do for prints.
Thanks Cate. And thanks for mentioning that site on here. That's what I was looking for. Hope it works out for me better than the other ones I'm on.
As far as my acceptance rate, I look forward to plenty of rejections in the future I guess it all depends on what they're looking for really (assuming the photos meet the technical requirements, then it just comes down to content).
You can sell digital downloads with a license here in Smugmug already. They just don't have a real stock photo site up at the moment. You just sell the downloads from your own smugmug site. I think you set the prices in the pricing tool just like you do for prints.
PhotoShelter Collection Kaput
Well I gave Photoshelter a try, and of course was not expecting anything, but it was a good introduction to stock photos...however, Photoshelter has tossed in the towel: they are closing their Stock Photo site, going back to simply storing and hosting photos.
Comments
I found this link when google searching for "photoshelter". The link she gave is bad, but it does get you to her food gallery. I put the direct link to the food gallery below.
http://diaryofaprilsims.wordpress.com/2008/03/17/canon-g9-image-accepted-to-photoshelter-pizza/
http://psc.photoshelter.com/user/aprilsims/set/A0000zvud_6Iaczc/Food
See what I'm talking about?...that pizza photo?
I really don't know what to think. I will certainly try to get my foot in the door at Photoshelter because I like their philosophy and they do have a lot of awesome content on there already....but again, I was really scratching my head at some of the photos I've seen there. Mainly the headscrathers were photos with an overall good subject and interesting composition, but the technical aspects seem to be a little on the low side. Something I myself would be afraid to submit, thinking "there's no chance this will ever get approved!"
www.photobycate.com
http://photobycate.wordpress.com/
I assume that if you sign on to Photoshelter and pick the Rights Managed option, you had better not have the very same photos elsewhere offered as Royalty-Free, like on iStock for RF....Correct?
There are three images there that would not make the cut at any agency concerned about QC. This would concern me as a contributor, because the first thing I would think as a potential purchaser if that image showed up is that I don't want to have to wade through this to get to a potentially useable image that the photog has decided is worth $? when I can go to iStock who's already eliminated these images through there top notch QC standards.
When I first started contributing to iStock I was bummed with the rejections, now I'm thankful.
Honestly with that kind of content how can you expect high paying clients to stick around, try to filter through the less desirable to get to your quality image, just to pay more? Think about it.
but...again... I'm no expert.
Keith Tharp.com - Champion Photo
www.photobycate.com
http://photobycate.wordpress.com/
www.photobycate.com
http://photobycate.wordpress.com/
Clean interface, much better than Photographer's Direct (the latter reminds me of my own 10-odd year old attmpts to play with HTML 1.0).
When I first submitted required 10 initial images (all from my "Best of.." series) I got 3 rejected, 6 soft rejected and 1 accepted. There was no explanation on rejections (except for the static text on top of the page that was essentially saying "rejection is part of the game, deal with it"), however there were explanations for soft rejections, mostly about the way I originally captioned them. I redid the captions and in two weeks or so (yeah, they do take time) got them all approved.
After that I added 40 or 50 more from the same series. One was rejected, few were soft rejected (and later approved).
Now they are all live, yet thus far I didn't get even 10 hits total, depsite extensive (IMHO) keywording (very cool keyword verification tool, btw)
Photographers Direct didn't reject any of the images at all. I assume they didn't reject any from others either. They didn't request or verify keywords, either. As I mentioned earlier the UI is very poor and limited, so I have no idea how my images perform. Once or twice a week I receive (filtered) request emails which I have as much chances/desire to fulfill as I have chances to go to the next Mars mission...
Any photo with Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna all in the frame, in or out of their racing cars. $300.
Yeah, sure, I'll get right on it. :cry
Thus far I spent about 2-3 solid days of work uploading and updating my content. Outcome - zero, naturally. I guess 3 months means nothing in this game, so I'm simply waiting. Luckily I didn't subsribe for paid versions...
HTH
Have you submitted anything to Digital Railroad? I was reading their requirements for selling and found it very technical. All I want to do is upload, caption and keyword and submit and sell. Take a look at their site drr.net and let me know if I'm just too technically challenged.:D
www.photobycate.com
http://photobycate.wordpress.com/
www.photobycate.com
http://photobycate.wordpress.com/
www.photobycate.com
http://photobycate.wordpress.com/
Hi Folks,
I want to thank you for all the great info in this thread and for turning me on to PhotoShelter.
I have been looking into joining, but I must admit, I'm somewhat stumped by the Contributor's Agreement. PS seems to state clearly that they will not assign contributed works to any third parties, then they appear to use several "notwithstanding" clauses to reserve the right to do anything they want with our material without notice?
I would very much like to make sure that a service provider does not 'sell' my library and terms of agreement to another party that I'd rather not do business with. That could be disastrous! So the way I see it, if the service provider wants to sell out or merge with another party, we get informed and have the right to pull out before the deal is done.
Makes simple sense to me.
The agreement also seems to say that if the client hasn't paid within 45 days we loose our share. I'm not exactly sure that's what PS means to say, but it is an agreement, so I'd rather not agree to it unless such things are clear.
On top of that, no where can I find a simple statement from PS that they will take reasonable care to protect contributed works from theft and unauthorized use -- something I'd very much expect from a partner that's asking 30 percent of the take.
I have asked PS to clarify. I'll report anything I learn here.
"Dear Jon,
Congratulations! Our editors have reviewed your application and are thrilled to welcome you as a contributing member to the PhotoShelter Collection.
Your acceptance means that some or all of your images have been accepted into the Collection and are awaiting your further action to make them available for sale.
Please log into your PhotoShelter account to keyword and price your images and make them live to the site, as well as upload and submit additional images for review. You can log into your account here...."
I submitted 9 photos - 8 approved and 1 soft rejection for a photo I forgot to add the caption to. So I guess that one will be fine when I fix the caption.
Don't ya just love those "Dear John" letters?
I'm waiting it out for SM to get in on the act - for the reasons mentioned above, it's lot of effort and hassle - you actually have to be pretty dedicated, and I don't want to start somewhere I don't know and then just get demoralised - I'd rather be somewhere I DO know and get demoralised
seriously though - I find the question about not really understanding why what gets accepted and what gets rejected a bit hard to take - I guess Im just too sensitive - not about rejection but about getting confused and frustrated
...pics..
another reason why Im waiting for SM because I trust them _ I also found the PS CA something that basically I understood as ' and here's something to confound you just in case we wnat to get away with something you don't like' - now obviously they didnt actually say that but as soon as I have trouble understanding something then thats waht I assume theyre saying because IMO they could, if they wanted, make it real ( real) simple
...pics..
the term "soft rejection" reminds me of High school dances.
anyway I am still genuinely interested in serious hard numbers.
as I mentioned it's been 10 months with iStock yesterday my #1 image broke $500 on it's own.
Keith Tharp.com - Champion Photo
I didn't read that, but I do believe that I read somewhere that their intent was to put a hurting on iStock and Getty.
I don't contribute to Photoshelter, I'm exclusively with iStock.
Keith Tharp.com - Champion Photo
My Photos
My Blog
On Google+
On DrivingLine
www.photobycate.com
http://photobycate.wordpress.com/
Congratulations. Many, many sales to you!!!
I think I only got 5 accepted when I sent my initial ten in
www.photobycate.com
http://photobycate.wordpress.com/
As far as my acceptance rate, I look forward to plenty of rejections in the future
You can sell digital downloads with a license here in Smugmug already. They just don't have a real stock photo site up at the moment. You just sell the downloads from your own smugmug site. I think you set the prices in the pricing tool just like you do for prints.
www.photobycate.com
http://photobycate.wordpress.com/
Well I gave Photoshelter a try, and of course was not expecting anything, but it was a good introduction to stock photos...however, Photoshelter has tossed in the towel: they are closing their Stock Photo site, going back to simply storing and hosting photos.
http://blog.photoshelter.com/corp/2008/09/a-difficult-decision-and-refoc.html
Interesting explanation, and it does suggest there are incredible competitive roadblocks that perhaps Smugmug could not cross either.